treaty, tripoli, pledge, allegiance, god, christian, religion, US, united, states,
As far as I can tell, you only need to get about three people in front of a camera in order to have one of them assert that the US is a "Christian Nation". They cite as evidence anything that even mentions god, including such perennial favorites as "In God We Trust" on our money, "under god" in our pledge, and the mentions of god in the Declaration of Independence .
I thought I would mention the history of some of these "proofs" that the US is a Christian Nation.
In God We Trust:
The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins in 1864 largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War. That would be 88 years after the founding of the United States.
The Pledge of Allegiance:
The Pledge of Allegiance did not have the words "under God" in it until 1954- 178 years after the founding of the United States.
The Treaty of Tripoli*:
Unequivocably states that the United States was not ever a "Christian nation".
With slightly over 75% of the US self identifying as christian, the US may well be a nation of christians, but we are not now, nor have we ever been, a christian nation.
*a treaty with pirates. muslim pirates.
Monday, April 13, 2009
7 comments:
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Some of these wingnuts claim that since Article 11 (the one which says that the US is not a Christian nation) is not in the Arabic version, the treaty does not apply. However, this is a false dilemma. The English form, which includes Article 11, is what was ratified unanimously, and not the Arabic version. Hence, this "objection" is no such thing, and the treaty does indeed show that the US is not a Christian nation.
ReplyDeleteI saw that discussion and thought, "who cares what the arabic version had in it- the english version was the ratified version."
ReplyDeletegood to see my off-the-cuff analysis wasn't ridiculous.
one has to wonder if many of these peopleeven understand what a state religion is.
ReplyDeleteThe Bible forbids many of the freedoms we enjoy in this country and on which we were founded. For example, freedom of religion. You are most definitely *not* free to worship as you please in the Bible. You are to worship one god only and the penalty is *death* if you're caught. Women ministers are expressly forbidden in the Bible and there are plenty of those in our Protestant churches. So obviously we not a nation founded on the Bible. And if not on the Bible, in what sense can they say America is a Christian nation? Because some of the founders were theists? So. Some of them were atheists too.
ReplyDeletePlain and simple, after our foundation as a secular nation, religious people, notably Christians, have been trying to cram their views down our throats and get laws. They're using our freedoms as Americans to mask their bigotry and intolerance. It's shameful.
Even if America was founded on Christinity, so what? It was also founded on slavery.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather leave both those tumorous ideas in the past.
From an atheists perspective, the one dollar bill might as well say "in faeries we trust". it's just embarrassing. It should be changed to "In reason we trust".
I enjoy crossing out "god" and writing in "gay", but it is silly. and you'd think the whole god on the money thing would tick off christians, too. as i remember, jesus was not all about the money lenders in the temple.
ReplyDeleteFor the comment above me from personal failure...God is a universal term and u refer to jesus and God in ur comment...every releigion has a God...only Christianity has Jesus.
ReplyDelete